TIDAL STRATEGIES
Flipping is one of
Bradley Dortch’s
favorite ways to
catch tidal hawgs.
Vaughan thinks that at low tide bass
will actually pull off their beds and sit
near them in water just deep enough
for them to be comfortable. Then, when
the water rises back up, they’ll pull up
and guard the nests again.
“In springtime, generally speaking,
the higher the water the better the fish-
ing,” says Vaughan, “because they’re
trying to be as shallow as they can be,
but still have a little water there on the
low tide.”
PASS UP A
2. NEVER
DUCK BLIND
Especially on the waters of the
lower Tensaw Delta, where hard cover
can be tough to find, Dortch says you
should never drive past a duck blind.
“If you see one, you better fish it,”
he says. “A lot of those lower bays and
delta areas have duck blinds. It’s off the
wall, and it gives them some hard
cover to get on. It’s pretty obvious to
fish, and if you’re the first guy to fish it,
you usually catch a good one off it.”
Because duck blinds are usually
pretty snaggy, Dortch typically starts
by pitching a Texas-rigged soft plastic
like a Berkley PowerBait Pit Boss,
Bunker Hawg, Rocket Craw or Change
Up – something with a lot of tentacles
that can move water and imitate a crab
or a shrimp. His secondary bait is a
Jenko Fishing CD Squarebill Crankbait
or a Bandit Series 200 that he can run
along the sides and corners.
“I work outside in,” he adds. “A lot
of them are built in a U shape, where
they pull the boat in the middle of
them, so I usually hit the corners, and
I’ve caught a lot of fish right in the mid-
dle of it where they put the boat.”
OVERLOOK
3. DON’T
CYPRESS TREES
1.
RECOGNIZE THE SPAWN
IS DIFFERENT
It’s common knowledge that the
lower stages of an outgoing and
incoming tide are the best for fishing
on tidal waters, but Vaughan says you
can throw that wisdom out the window
during the spawn.
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“When the water is up, it allows
them to get on cypress trees and
marsh banks, and it puts some water
over their heads,” he says. “What hap-
pens when the tide drops out is that
there’s so little water that their bed
remains wet, but the fish are so spooky
you can’t even get close enough to
them to make a long cast.”
Cypress trees are a pretty common
piece of cover in a lot of tidal systems,
but on the James and the
Chickahominy rivers, they’re a constant
for the bass.
“There’s a population of bass that
always live on cypress trees,” says
Vaughan. “They look pitiful in the sum-
mer; they’re the poorest things. I don’t
even know how they survive, but they
live up there. There are fish that live on
them their whole life. That’s what they
prefer, but guys nowadays have really
drifted away from fishing cypress trees
outside of the spawn.”
FLWFISHING.COM | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING.COM | APRIL-MAY 2020